Titanoboa, the 48-Foot Monster Snake, Slithers Into the Natural History Museum

It’s alive!

Well, not really. But you might have to do a double-take at the 48-foot long replica of Titanoboa, on view starting tomorrow at the Natural History Museum. After a head-turning debut at New York’s Grand Central Station last week, the giant snake has taken up residence in D.C. The exhibition, “Titanaboa: Monster Snake” charts the incredible 2002 discovery of the snake’s fossils in the coal mines of Cerrejón, Colombia. The discovery itself is just as huge as the snake; Jonathan Bloch, one of the paleontologists on the team, explains, “After the extinction of the dinosaurs, this animal was literally the largest predator on the surface of the planet for at least ten million years.”

If that’s not enough to pique your interest, we’ve compiled a required reading/viewing list of all things monstrous and reptilian:

• Smithsonian magazine’s cover story on the discovery of the 65 million-year-old Titanoboa fossils.
• Around the Mall’s blog post on the making of the giant model. (With a timelapse video on how the model was made)
• A sneak preview for the Smithsonian Channel documentary, premiering on Sunday, April 1.
• An interview with scientist Carlos Jaramillo, a paleobotanist who was part of the team that uncovered Titanoboa
• And, just for fun, a hypothetical showdown between T-Rex and Titanoboa.

Aviva Shen | | READ MORE

Aviva Shen is a reporter/blogger for ThinkProgress. Before joining CAP, Aviva interned and wrote for Smithsonian magazine, Salon, and New York.